There have been more than a few theories about how the Dems lost the 2016 election as badly as we did (not the popular vote, mind you, and the electoral college wasn’t really a “landslide”, but that whole White House, Congress, Supreme Court thing really stings). And as we’ve asked so many times before, a lot of people want to know: Can we blame this on brown/gay people?

Well, sure! Why not, right? I mean, yeah, we could discuss the fact that Clinton’s team made some legitimate mistakes in where a lot of their campaigning was done and in how easily they expected to win some states that flipped. Or we could discuss the underlying issues that are actually contributing to the deterioration of our economy. Or we could have a Come to Jesus Talk where we reconcile the fact that while housing, education and health care costs have skyrocketed in the past 40 years, real wages have not. We could to a better job of acknowledging the ways in which our country will need to fundamentally change in order to better the lives of our citizens, including large investments in infrastructure, desperately needed reforms to our transportation and prison systems, and a massive focus on moving to renewable energy.

But isn’t it better to just blame those assholes who won’t shut up about how society is inherently oppressive to them?

But if your panic over a loss makes you abandon both your principles and the people who actually vote for you, then you’ll be in the wilderness for a decade.

Also, just one last idea: If the people who are bitching about identity politics want them to go away so much, maybe they should just stop being such bigoted assholes.